Spainsh bank halts foreclosures after evicted woman's suicide

Hours after the death of Amaya Egana,people attend a demonstration in front of a court house in the Northern Spanish Basque town of Barakaldo on November 9, 2012.

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Spanish Kutxabank bank has put a stop to all foreclosures after a woman facing eviction killed herself in Basque region.
"The president of Kutxabank, Mario Fernandez, has instructed that the entity should immediately halt all mortgage-related eviction procedures until the new related regulations are known," the bank said in a statement released on Saturday.
This decision comes as Amaia Egana jumped to death from her fourth-floor balcony in Basque city of Barakaldo on Friday as a judicial commission from the local court walked into her apartment to foreclose on her.
Evicted woman's suicide also brought thousands of people to the streets in a number of cities including the capital Madrid and Barakaldo, a suburb of Bilbao in the Basque region, with demonstrators chanting slogans such as ''No eviction unanswered… We must stop financial terrorism.”
Protesters called on the government to immediately put an end to foreclosures across recession-hit Spain and blamed tough austerity measures for the suicides in the country.
Spain’s economy collapsed into recession in the second half of 2008, leaving more than 400,000 families homeless.
On October 26, new figures released by Spain’s National Statistics Institute showed that the country’s unemployment rate has climbed to 25.02 percent in the third quarter of 2012, up from the previous 24.63 percent.
Protests have also been growing against the Spanish government’s austerity measures and labor reforms, which are hitting the middle and working classes the hardest, amid the deepening economic crisis.
The Spanish government remains adamant that austerity measures are needed to carry it through the crisis.
MAM/PKH